Simply adding competition in the tech sector won’t solve problems like privacy abuses or discrimination. Competition is needed, but regulation is a necessary element of any tech solution.
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The Decline of American Journalism Is an Antitrust Problem
Weak antitrust enforcement set the stage for Facebook and Google to extract the fruits of publishers’ labor. We won’t be able to save journalism and solve our disinformation problem unless we weaken monopolies’ power.
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Designating Tech Platforms as “Information Fiduciaries” Would Do Little to Address the Source of Their Power
The notion that Facebook, Google, and Twitter should be assigned fiduciary duties toward their end users has gained broad support in recent years. However, this proposed framework invites policy misfires since it fails to grapple with the structural dimensions of tech platforms’ power.
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Did Facebook and Google “Blackmail” EU Experts to Avoid Discussing Their Market Power?
A new report by the journalist network Investigate Europe claims representatives of Facebook and Google pressured members of an EU working group on fake news to drop proposals that would have called for an examination of the role played by tech platforms’ business models and market power in the spread of disinformation online.
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Antitrust Alone Is Not Enough to Combat the Problems Associated With Digital Platforms
Digital platforms present an enforcement challenge sufficiently daunting that it requires major reforms to antitrust law. But in order to restore lost competition, we need more than antitrust reform; we need better regulators. And for both, we need Congress to act.
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“Facebook Is Unaccountable to Shareholders, to its Users, to Government”
At the Stigler Center’s annual competition conference, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for the unwinding of Facebook’s WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions and the creation of a new regulatory agency to oversee digital platforms.
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Managing the Economic and Social Impact of the Digital Revolution
The four reports that will be presented at the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms, Markets and Democracy conference offer a compelling case for regulatory action and a very powerful array of solutions.
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When American Capitalism Meant Equality
Americans used to have a relatively egalitarian view of markets. How did they come to accept extreme inequality as an innate part of their economic system? At the heart of this change is a radical shift in the meaning of American capitalism itself.
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How to Protect Competition and Consumers in Digital Markets
While some markets may self-correct, rapid self-correction in markets dominated by large digital platforms is unlikely. The economy and market structure subcommittee of the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms Project proposes ways to reform antitrust law and regulation in order to adequately deliver competition to consumers.
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How to Address the Privacy and Security Challenges Posed by Big Tech
The idiosyncrasies of the American approach to regulation have left the world’s largest economy ill-equipped to protect consumers and guide firms when it comes to policy issues surrounding digital platforms. The privacy and data protection subcommittee of the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms Project proposes three complementary approaches to protecting privacy and security interests.
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How to Protect the News Media in the Age of Digital Platforms
Digital platforms present a new formidable threat to the news media that market forces will not correct if left to their own devices. The media subcommittee of the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms Project proposes ways to strengthen independent, strong, and rigorous accountability journalism.
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How to Mitigate the Political Impacts of Social Media and Digital Platform Concentration
Ahead of its annual conference on Digital Platforms, Markets and Democracy, the Stigler Center formed a committee to produce independent white papers that will inform policymakers on how to address the political and economic issues raised by tech platforms. In preparation for the conference, we are publishing the executive summary of each preliminary report.
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